Legacy
“Staple holes and condition suggested they had been kept in an envelope or file. There had almost certainly been a covering sheet, or sheets, now removed. ‘Berlin 1945’ was written at the top in pencil, in another hand.
‘I sensed, really, that it was a set-up,’ it began, with no preliminary, even as I was letting it happen. No young woman in Berlin had food, money, her own flat, decent clothes and shoes, make-up and nylon stockings unless she had somebody influential looking after her. Her e...yes, too, were different. Most eyes here were hungry and fearful. Hers were watchful, but in an assessing way, vulnerable but determined. It was as if she was saying, ‘Here I am. You may not want me but this is it, this is what I have to do. So.’ That was in the summer, of course, after the German surrender. For me it came after nearly a year of living in woods and fields, of fighting every hedgerow, ditch, canal or river. True, I had had seven blissful days back in Gloucestershire with Jean, who I never wanted to leave again.MoreLess
‘I sensed, really, that it was a set-up,’ it began, with no preliminary, even as I was letting it happen. No young woman in Berlin had food, money, her own flat, decent clothes and shoes, make-up and nylon stockings unless she had somebody influential looking after her. Her e...yes, too, were different. Most eyes here were hungry and fearful. Hers were watchful, but in an assessing way, vulnerable but determined. It was as if she was saying, ‘Here I am. You may not want me but this is it, this is what I have to do. So.’ That was in the summer, of course, after the German surrender. For me it came after nearly a year of living in woods and fields, of fighting every hedgerow, ditch, canal or river. True, I had had seven blissful days back in Gloucestershire with Jean, who I never wanted to leave again.MoreLess
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